Artist, Curators Refuse to Open Israel Pavilion at Venice Biennale Until Ceasefire Deal

A visitor walks next to the 'Las Meninas a San Marco' sculpture part of the installation by the Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, at the San Marco's Square during the 60th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
A visitor walks next to the 'Las Meninas a San Marco' sculpture part of the installation by the Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, at the San Marco's Square during the 60th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
TT

Artist, Curators Refuse to Open Israel Pavilion at Venice Biennale Until Ceasefire Deal

A visitor walks next to the 'Las Meninas a San Marco' sculpture part of the installation by the Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, at the San Marco's Square during the 60th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
A visitor walks next to the 'Las Meninas a San Marco' sculpture part of the installation by the Spanish artist Manolo Valdés, at the San Marco's Square during the 60th Biennale of Arts exhibition in Venice, Italy, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

The artist and curators representing Israel at this year’s Venice Biennale have announced that they won't open the Israeli pavilion exhibit until there is a ceasefire in Gaza and an agreement to release hostages seized by Hamas on Oct. 7.

Their decision, praised as courageous by the festival’s main curator, was posted on a sign in the window of the Israeli pavilion on the first day of media previews, ahead of the Biennale contemporary art fair opening on Saturday.

“The art can wait, but the women, children and people living through hell cannot,” the curators said on Tuesday in a statement together with the artist. It expressed horror at both the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and that of the relatives of hostages seized in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Israel is among 88 national participants in the 60th Venice Biennale, which runs from April 20-Nov. 24. The Israeli pavilion was built in 1952 as a permanent representation of Israel inside the Giardini, the original venue of the world’s oldest contemporary art show and the site of 29 national pavilions. Other nations show in the nearby Arsenale or at venues throughout the city.

This year, the Israeli exhibit has been titled “(M)otherland” by artist Ruth Patir.

Even before the preview, thousands of artists, curators and critics had signed an open letter calling on the Biennale to exclude the Israeli national pavilion from this year’s show to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. Those opposed to Israel's presence had also vowed to protest on-site.
Italy’s culture minister had firmly backed Israel’s participation, and the fair was opening amid unusually heightened security.

Written in English, the announcement Tuesday of Israel's delayed opening read: “The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached.” Two Italian soldiers stood guard nearby.

In a statement, Patir said she and the curators wanted to show solidarity with the families of the hostages “and the large community in Israel who is calling for change.”

“As an artist and educator, I firmly object to cultural boycott, but I have a significant difficulty in presenting a project that speaks about the vulnerability of life in a time of unfathomed disregard for it,” Patir said in the statement.

Patir, who remained in Venice on Tuesday, declined further comment. Neither the Biennale organizers nor the Israeli culture ministry commented.

The curators of the Israeli pavilion, Mira Lapidot and Tamar Margalit, said they were delaying the opening of the exhibit because of the “horrific war that is raging in Gaza,” but that they hoped the conditions would change so the exhibit could open for public view.

“There is no end in sight, only the promise of more pain, loss, and devastation. The exhibition is up and the pavilion is waiting to be opened,” they said. For now, a video work made by Patir can be seen through the pavilion window.

Adriano Pedrosa, the Brazilian curator of the main show at the Biennale, praised the gesture.

“It’s a very courageous decision,” Pedrosa told The Associated Press. “I think it’s a very wise decision as well” because it is “very difficult to present a work in this particular context.”

The national pavilions at Venice are independent of the main show, and each nation decides its own show, which may or may not play into the curator’s vision.

Palestinian artists are participating in collateral events in Venice and three Palestinian artists' works are to appear in Pedrosa's main show, titled “Stranieri Ovunque — Foreigners Everywhere,” which has a preponderance of artists from the global south.

Pedrosa, the artistic director of Brazil’s Sao Paulo Museum of Art, said one of the Palestinian artists, New York-based Khaled Jarrar, was not physically in Venice because he couldn't get a visa.



A Mix of Science and Tradition Helps Restore Relics in China's Forbidden City

Visitors look at elaborate antique clocks displayed on the sprawling compound of the Forbidden City also known as the Palace Museum in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Visitors look at elaborate antique clocks displayed on the sprawling compound of the Forbidden City also known as the Palace Museum in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
TT

A Mix of Science and Tradition Helps Restore Relics in China's Forbidden City

Visitors look at elaborate antique clocks displayed on the sprawling compound of the Forbidden City also known as the Palace Museum in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Visitors look at elaborate antique clocks displayed on the sprawling compound of the Forbidden City also known as the Palace Museum in Beijing, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

It's highly technical work in what looks more like a lab than a museum: A fragment of a glazed roof tile from Beijing’s Forbidden City is analyzed in a state-of-the-art X-ray diffraction machine that produces images, which are then projected onto computer screens.
The fragment being examined has a dark area on its surface that restorers want to understand. Their objective is to better preserve the artifacts at the sprawling imperial palace, the former home of China’s emperors and its seat of power for hundreds of years, The Associated Press reported.
“We want to learn what the black material is," said Kang Baoqiang, one of the restorers at the complex, today a museum that attracts tourists from all over the world. “Whether it’s atmospheric sediment or the result of substantial change from within.”
About 150 workers on the team fuse scientific analysis and traditional techniques to clean, patch up and otherwise revive the more than 1.8 million relics in the museum's collection.
They include scroll paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics — and, somewhat unexpectedly, ornate antique clocks that were gifted to emperors by early European visitors.
Down the hall from the X-ray room, two other restorers patch up holes on a panel of patterned green silk with the Chinese character for “longevity” sewn into it, carefully adding color in a process called “inpainting.”
The piece is believed to have been a birthday gift to Empress Dowager Cixi, the power behind the throne in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Much of the work is laborious and monotonous — and takes months to complete.
“I don’t have the big dreams of protecting traditional cultural heritage that people talk about," said Wang Nan, one of the restorers. "I simply enjoy the sense of achievement when an antique piece is fixed.”
Now a major tourist site in the heart of Beijing, the Forbidden City is the name that was given to the sprawling compound by foreigners in imperial times because entry was forbidden to most outsiders. It's formally known as the Palace Museum.
Many of its treasures were hurriedly taken away during World War II to keep them from falling into the hands of the invading Japanese army. During a civil war that brought the Communist Party to power in 1949, the defeated Nationalists took many of the most prized pieces to Taiwan, where they are now housed in the National Palace Museum.
Beijing's Palace Museum has since rebuilt its collection.
Restoration techniques have also evolved, said Qu Feng, head of the museum’s Conservation Department, though the old ways remain the foundation of the work.
When we preserve an antique piece, we “protect the cultural values it carries,” Qu said. "And that is our ultimate goal.”